Naseer Al-Nahr, Arab News

BAGHDAD, 4 May 2004 — Five Iraqis were killed in Najaf as US troops fired on supporters of an anti-American Shiite cleric who attacked their base with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

A father and his two sons and a policeman were among the killed and 20 were wounded outside the walls of the US base, local medics said.

Followers of Moqtada Sadr launched mortar rounds and traded fire with US soldiers at a base and checkpoint in the industrial zone on the perimeter of Najaf, 130 kilometers south of Baghdad.

Smoke was seen rising at the base between Najaf and nearby Kufa, and an abandoned hospital on the base was in flames, said policeman Karim Hussein.

Mortars bombarded a nearby checkpoint, manned by around seven US soldiers and set up to cut the alleged flow of weapons between Sadr’s supporters in his stronghold of Kufa and neighboring Najaf.

A father and his two sons were killed in the blistering firefight which ensued. Hussein, who retrieved the bodies, said they were trapped in their motor oil shop when bullets and mortar rounds started flying.

One Iraqi policeman and a civilian were also killed in the fighting and 16 others were injured, two of them seriously, said Dr. Sabah Jader Hussein and medic Jassem Kazem from Najaf’s Hakeem General Hospital.

Kazem said there were several bodies in two cars near the scene of the fighting.

Garage owner Raad Kamel said he was wounded in the back as he watched the first mortar rounds hit the checkpoint. A second man, Hussein Obeid Jassem, said he was hit in the leg by shrapnel. US soldiers manning the checkpoint said Sadr militiamen, known as the Mahdi Army, were trying to smuggle more weapons into Kufa, a town about 10 kilometers outside Najaf.

In Fallujah, US Marines brought in a new Iraqi general with a history of standing up to Saddam Hussein yesterday to lead a force they have charged with putting down insurgency in the city.

Their initial choice, who outraged victims of the Baathist regime because of past service in Saddam’s feared Republican Guards, said he was stepping aside, leaving command of the new Fallujah Brigade to former intelligence officer Mohammed Latif.

As US commanders struggle to stamp out open rebellion in two cities and attacks that kill soldiers daily across Iraq, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he expected the UN to approve some form of multinational force for Iraq once Washington hands back formal sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30.

Yesterday, a US soldier was killed and two were wounded by gunfire south of Baghdad, the US military said.

Latif would, if he passes further vetting, lead the Fallujah Brigade, a senior US military official said. Maj. Gen. Jassim Mohammed Saleh said he would have no more to do with the unit. Iraq’s Shiite majority have accused Saleh of taking part in the Republican Guards’ bloody suppression of a Shiite uprising in 1991.